Woad 'Hands on' workshop - come and join us for a 2 day active learning experience!
This is going to be a couple of fun days spending time in the field harvesting dye plants and moving onto processing them in the dye studio. We will be doing some woad plant trials as well as dye a small item for you to take home after. What you can expect:
- A talk by Tristan Lienhard
- Harvesting Woad in the field
- Making Woad balls for our fermentation Vats
- Setting a woad pigment extraction, which takes a number of days to extract
- Testing the blue content of over 20 different varieties of Woad, using the Japanese cold direct dyeing technique
- Tour of the dye house
- A talk by Jennifer Lienhard on fermentation vats, their differences and historical backgrounds.
Basic Knowledge of Indigo or Plant dyeing of advantage, but not necessary.
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Dates to choose from:
Friday 12th & Saturday 13th of July 2024
Monday 15th & Tuesday 16th of July 2024
Day 1:
Venue in the morning: Field near Killaloe, car pooling from Killaloe
Venue after harvest: AppleOak FibreWorks Dye house
Time: 10am - 3/4pm
We will meet in Killaloe and car pool to the field, due to limited parking space. Tristan will give a short talk about the growing of Woad plants, the plant & seed trials he is working on and the sustainable aspect of growing our own colour.
We will then proceed with the harvest of specific woad plant varieties for blue trials. Once harvested, we will drive to the dye house and proceed with dyeing and testing the blue content using the cold direct Japanese method.
Lunch Break 1.30 - Please bring your own lunch cutlery and cup. Coffees, Tea, Milk and Oat milk are provided.
After Lunch we will continue finishing the textile trials and finish with a tour of the dye house.
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Day 2
Venue in the morning: Field near Killaloe, car pooling from Killaloe
Venue after harvest: AppleOak FibreWorks Dye house
Time: 10am - 3pm
We will meet in Killaloe and car pool to the field, due to limited parking space. Here we will harvest the remaining half of the Woad crop and bring it to the Dye house.
We will process the remaining Woad leaves into woad balls and create a woad leaf fermentation extraction for pigment.
Lunch Break - Please bring your own lunch cutlery and cup. Coffees, Tea, Milk and Oat milk are provided.
After lunch, we will break open a few woad balls from previous years and feed the active vat accompanied by a short talk on fermentation vats, their differences and historical backgrounds.
All materials are provided on both days. You will take home a small woad dyed silk scarf and a woad ball if you like :)
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